Editorials
The True Crime Terror of ‘The Poughkeepsie Tapes’ 15 Years Later
From Paranormal Activity to Grave Encounters, the most popular Found Footage movies tend to focus on supernatural horror. However, the sub-genre is capable of much more than that, with the believable thrills of the format becoming especially useful when telling stories about plausible terrors. After all, spooky media isn’t exclusive to fiction, with the True Crime genre offering up plenty of grounded scares without the need for literal ghosts and demons. That’s why I’d argue that the Dowdle Brothers’ controversial The Poughkeepsie Tapes is one of the most effective Found Footage flicks out there.
Not only is it a chilling addition to serial killer cinema, but it also serves as a rare example of a modern cult hit, with the Dowdles’ film becoming something of an urban legend due to the convoluted circumstances of its release. And with the film celebrating its 15th anniversary, I’d like to look back at how it was the first Found Footage flick to embrace the True Crime format.
If you’ve never seen The Poughkeepsie Tapes, the film is structured like a sensationalist crime doc about a collection of snuff footage shot by a deranged serial killer. From talking-head interviews to crime scene photos, the film uses every trick in the True Crime book to describe this madman’s reign of terror while also exploring why we’re so enamored with serial killer media in the first place.
Originally debuting in film festivals back in 2007 (almost concurrently with the original Paranormal Activity), The Poughkeepsie Tapes definitely left an impression on those lucky enough to view it on the big screen. In fact, many critics claimed that the movie was a cult classic in the making, including our very own Brad Miska. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop MGM from keeping the film in distribution limbo by refusing to give it a wide release.
Now that’s what I call Found Footage!
Naturally, the internet soon began to speculate about these delays, with some fans going so far as to suggest that there were legal issues afoot due to the director’s supposed use of actual snuff footage in the picture (which obviously wasn’t the case), as well as fear of backlash by the Poughkeepsie police department. Meanwhile, bootleg copies of the film slowly made their way online, with snippets of the then-unreleased picture being used to promote popular internet legends like The Grifter. It was extremely common to see footage from The Poughkeepsie Tapes being paired with doctored screenshots from A Serbian Film when browsing creepypastas online.
I only bring this backstory up because I had these associations in mind when I first laid eyes on a bootleg DVD of the film back in 2010, and I think that a little bit of context helps with the Found Footage viewing experience. While the movie would eventually be released on VOD in 2014, and Scream Factory graced us with an official Blu-Ray release in 2017, by then it was much harder for audiences to be in the right state of mind to properly engage with the picture’s simulated reality.
This is a huge shame, as I believe the film boasts some of the most terrifying moments in all of Found Footage – all without resorting to monsters or jump-scares. In fact, the mere description of the killer’s actions is often more impactful than the accompanying VHS footage, with law enforcement struggling to process the horrific aftermath of a single man’s rampage. I particularly appreciate how the movie plays with the expectation of horror, like the scene where a couple of girl-scouts show up at the killer’s door attempting to sell cookies, or the creeping dread when a victim slowly realizes that the man giving her a ride isn’t a cop.
Of course, not everything is that subtle, with the film making use of various serial killer movie tropes during its more exaggerated moments. For example, there’s a staged interview with the infamous Ted Bundy, with the real-life killer (portrayed by a lookalike on grainy CCTV footage) giving the authorities advice on how to apprehend the Water Street Butcher. There are also a couple of John-Carpenter-influenced POV sequences where the killer invades his victims’ homes while recording, though some of these are conveniently edited and fail to show the murders themselves.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
For 2007 standards, it’s hard to get scarier than this, but a decade-and-a-half of genre evolution means that in the year of our lord 2023, The Poughkeepsie Tapes simply doesn’t feel 100% authentic anymore. From the widescreen VHS footage to obvious digital filters – not to mention convenient camera placement – there are plenty of shortcomings that are likely to bother Found Footage and True Crime fans alike. Hell, the movie even perpetuates that myth about having to wait 24 hours before declaring someone missing, which is completely untrue.
There are also a handful of over-the-top performances and hammy line deliveries that make the film feel less convincing, especially among the supporting cast. That being said, I think the film’s solid collection of lo-fi scares more than makes up for these blunders. I mean, that final scene is honestly one of the most disturbing endings in Found Footage despite not really showing anything, and there’s a reason that the injection scene became so popular on the horror-oriented corners of the internet.
Of course, despite its factual shortcomings and a handful of unconvincing performances, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is still a fairly accurate representation of sensationalist True Crime from the 2000s. I remember watching tons of serial killer docs on Discovery Channel that looked and felt exactly like this film, though they would rely on dramatic re-enactments rather than recovered snuff footage. The movie is also somewhat prescient in its depiction of media frenzy making a situation worse, with the Dowdles preceding the podcasts and streaming shows that led to the massive resurgence of scary non-fiction. That’s why I think the film would have been much more successful had it been made and released today, though it would be a little harder to fool casual moviegoers.
Regardless, The Poughkeepsie Tapes remains a Found Footage landmark 15 years later despite never reaching mainstream audiences. While the movie boasts a sizable cult following among folks who watched it back when there was still a bit of mystery to the flick, I’d argue that it’s worth revisiting if you can put yourself in that mid-2000s headspace. It may not be for everyone, but even the harshest critics have to admit that we’ve yet to see a Found Footage antagonist as memorably evil as Edward Carver, so unearth these tapes at your own risk…
There was a moment in Japanese culture when writers and filmmakers began to update centuries-old fears so that they could still be effective storytelling tools in the modern world. One of the best examples of this is how extremely popular stories like Ringu and Parasite Eve began re-interpreting the cyclical nature of curses as pseudo-scientific “infections,” with this new take on J-Horror even making its way over to the world of video games in titles like Resident Evil (a sci-fi deconstruction of a classic haunted house yarn).
However, there is one survival horror game that is rarely brought up during discussions about interactive J-Horror despite being part of a franchise that helped to popularize Japanese genre cinema around the world. Naturally, that game is the Nintendo Wii exclusive Ju-On: The Grudge, a self-professed haunted house simulator that was mostly forgotten by horror fans and gamers alike despite being a legitimately creative experience devised by a true master of the craft. And with the title celebrating its 15th anniversary this year (and the Ju-On franchise its 25th), I think this is the perfect time to look back on what I believe to be an unfairly maligned J-Horror gem.
After dozens of sequels, spin-offs and crossovers, it’s hard to believe that the Ju-On franchise originally began as a pair of low-budget short films directed by Takashi Shimizu while he was still in film school. However, these humble origins are precisely why Shimizu remained dead-set on retaining creative control of his cinematic brainchild for as long as he could, with the filmmaker even going so far as to insist on directing the video game adaptation of his work alongside Feelplus’ Daisuke Fukugawa as a part of Ju-On’s 10th anniversary celebration.
Rather than forcing the franchise’s core concepts into a pre-existing survival-horror mold like some other licensed horror titles (such as the oddly action-packed Blair Witch trilogy), the developers decided that their game should be a “haunted house simulator” instead, with the team focusing more on slow-paced cinematic scares than the action-adventure elements that were popular at the time.
While there are rumors that this decision was reached due to Shimizu’s lack of industry experience (as well as the source material’s lack of shootable monsters like zombies and demons), several interviews suggest that Shimizu’s role during development wasn’t as megalomaniacal as the marketing initially suggested. In fact, the filmmaker’s input was mostly relegated to coming up with basic story ideas and advising the team on cut-scenes and how the antagonists should look and act. He also directed the game’s excellent live-action cut-scenes, which add even more legitimacy to the project.
The end result was a digital gauntlet of interactive jump-scares that put players in the shoes of the ill-fated Yamada family as they each explore different abandoned locations inspired by classic horror tropes (ranging from haunted hospitals to a mannequin factory and even the iconic Saeki house) in order to put an end to the titular curse that haunts them.
In gameplay terms, this means navigating five chapters of poorly lit haunts in first person while using the Wii-mote as a flashlight to fend off a series of increasingly spooky jump-scares through Dragon’s-Lair-like quick-time events – all the while collecting items, managing battery life and solving a few easy puzzles. There also some bizarre yet highly creative gameplay additions like a “multiplayer” mode where a second Wii-mote can activate additional scares as the other player attempts to complete the game.
When it works, the title immerses players in a dark and dingy world of generational curses and ghostly apparitions, with hand-crafted jump-scares testing your resolve as the game attempts to emulate the experience of actually living through the twists and turns of a classic Ju-On flick – complete with sickly black hair sprouting in unlikely places and disembodied heads watching you from inside of cupboards.
The title also borrows the narrative puzzle elements from the movies, forcing players to juggle multiple timelines and intentionally obtuse clues in order to piece together exactly what’s happening to the Yamada family (though you’ll likely only fully understand the story once you find all of the game’s well-hidden collectables). While I admit that this overly convoluted storytelling approach isn’t for everyone and likely sparked some of the game’s scathing reviews, I appreciate how the title refuses to look down on gamers and provides us with a complex narrative that fits right in with its cinematic peers.
Unfortunately, the experience is held back by some severe technical issues due to the decision to measure player movement through the Wii’s extremely inaccurate accelerometer rather than its infrared functionality (probably because the developers wanted to measure micro-movements in order to calculate how “scared” you were while playing). This means that you’ll often succumb to unfair deaths despite moving the controller in the right direction, which is a pretty big flaw when you consider that this is the title’s main gameplay mechanic.
In 2024, these issues can easily be mitigated by emulating the game on a computer, which I’d argue is the best way to experience the title (though I won’t go into detail about this due to Nintendo’s infamously ravenous legal team). However, no amount of post-release tinkering can undo the damage that this broken mechanic did on the game’s reputation.
That being said, I think it’s pretty clear that Shimizu and company intended this to be a difficult ordeal, with the slow pace and frequent deaths meant to guide players into experiencing the title as more of a grisly interactive movie than a regular video game. It’s either that or Shimizu took his original premise about the “Grudge” being born from violent deaths a little too seriously and wanted to see if the curse also worked on gamers inhabiting a virtual realm.
Regardless, once you accept that the odd gameplay loop and janky controls are simply part of the horror experience, it becomes a lot easier to accept the title’s mechanical failings. After all, this wouldn’t be much a Ju-On adaptation if you could completely avoid the scares through skill alone, though I don’t think there’s an excuse for the lack of checkpoints (which is another point for emulation).
It’s difficult to recommend Ju-On: The Grudge as a product; the controls and story seem hell-bent on frustrating the player into giving up entirely and it’s unlikely that you’ll unlock the final – not to mention best – level without a guide to the collectables. However, video games are more than just toys to be measured by their entertainment factor, and if you consider the thought and care that went into crafting the game’s chilling atmosphere and its beautifully orchestrated frights, I think you’ll find that this is a fascinating experience worth revisiting as an unfairly forgotten part of the Ju-On series.
Now all we have to do is chat with Nintendo so we can play this one again without resorting to emulation.
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